The Game of Life and Death
by AshHavynn
Summary: Prequel to A Wretch Like Me.


"Lucrecia ran into Hojo's office. She was certain by the way he was already standing and heading in her direction that he already knew, and it meant badly for her, but she still made her report.

"Professor, there was a rupture in one of the holding tanks, number C817, I--" He interrupted frantically.

"Yes, I know that! You could hear it halfway across the establishment! Tell me, is the specimen injured?"

"Umm, I, I," She clamored in a panic.

"Dr. Crescent, I'd expect a more professional report than idiotic stuttering. Now TELL me, is the specimen hurt," he repeated his question with a louder, stronger tone, but slowed it as if she were too stupid to comprehend fluent speech.

"I-I don't know, professor. I came as soon as the monitor displayed the rupture."

"Worthless," he snapped. "I want a complete oral analysis of the monitor over cylinder C817."

"Well," she said before being interrupted by the professor.

"Never begin sentences with 'well,' Dr. Crescent. Be professional, will you?"

"Yes, professor."

"Very well. Continue."

"First her heart rate increased drastically, and then the oxygen levels dropped, then skyrocketed. The temperature in the solution began rising rapidly, and then just before the rupture, the monitors went haywire."

"Marvelous," Hojo said sarcastically. "And you failed to return any news of the specimen's condition. Why don't you just go to the market and buy the necessary items for repair. I'll handle the specimen," he grunted. Then, sighing, he added, "alright, sweetheart?" Lucrecia blushed. A manipulative move. She was too weak hearted to understand that he was only using her.

"A-alright," she replied, and made her way out the door. She'd apparently displeased him; she usually got to help in cleaning up the aftermath. The truth was, most of these early experiments died.

As soon as she stepped out the door, his smile melted off of his face into a scowl. "_That woman. Unprofessional, scatterbrained, a nuisance… Unfocused and unpolished. She's just not fit to raise this child. I'll have to take full control if I want the results to be successful."_ He watched to ensure he was alone, and headed towards the laboratory with holding tank C817 in it.

The lab was eerily quiet, other than the never-ending beep of the heart monitor, and the hiss of the oxygen tubing. Florescent lights flickered on and off, and a glowing green liquid oozed over the floor in places. It was the mako fluid used in sustaining the lives of specimens.

Containment tube C817 was shattered, broken glass scattered across the floor surrounding the unit. Oxygen tubes flew recklessly, hanging from the ceiling of the unit, dancing as they let out oxygen with a forceful wind, and lifeless tubes dripped water or an orange fluid, and finally, a few of them spewed the green concoction covering the floor. Hojo grimaced in disapproval. Computers malfunctioned, shut down, rebooted, then malfunctioned again. Dissection tools lay haphazardly across creation, and the back of the room was blacked out due to no power. The power lines in the walls had been severed.

"817... 817," The jet haired man called in singsong. There was a toying and menacing smirk on his face. "817, you ought to know better than this…" Just the thought of Project C817 SOLITA being conscious excited him, but having the intelligence to cut the electricity in one part of the room! Oh, she was obviously alive and well.

With his hands clasped behind his back, professor Hojo almost marched forward, into the darkness. Looking around, he became more fed up with every moment. "817," he said in a wavering, stern voice that sounded like the tone you'd use in telling a rebellious child to listen, "I have no TIME for these games…" Hojo was the type, of course, who seriously believed his most dramatically altered experiments could still understand speech. A computer flashed on just 2 feet away.

Hojo didn't think much of it at first, as many computers were constantly turning on and off around him, but after it loaded, a command prompt window popped up, and the words "Then let's play the game of LIFE and DEATH" typed across the screen. Suddenly, all computer monitors in the room activated, those that were functional all featured Hojo's face on digital video. Hojo only smiled again.

"_Her intelligence has heightened to this level! Magnificent,"_ he thought. Certainly a triumph, for any creature to be housed in a holding tank so long and yet to still grow this much intellectually.

"Very well," he replied. "I will play your game." Hojo stepped out into the lighter half of the room, watching intently. "And how do you play?" He beamed, confident that he could catch the beast.

All the lights went off. Then, the computer with the words wrote out,

"You Don't. We do." Screams and breaking glass could be heard in the other rooms. Hojo's eyes widened. "My! My precious specimen!" The other holding tanks were rupturing as well, prematurely, and there were tests and experiments not run on the others. Hojo immediately ran out of the room and into the alternate labs to secure the other specimens. These children he so-called his "precious specimen" would eventually grow to become magnificent scientific breakthroughs-- if the experiments were successful. They would be the perfect and nearly invincible clones of his son. He'd gathered the little boys from the slums of the city he was in, a large city the people called "Midgar." Most of the children were abandoned or orphaned, or simply wandered too far from their parents. Some had run away. And now they paid the ultimate price. Experimentation that could and almost definitely would cost them their lives.

"The game of Life and Death," A small girl whispered from within the shadows' grasp. She stood at about 5 feet, and was stout by nature, but very thin due to not having moved--a sort of atrophy almost, however she was about 13. She had stringy, thick brown hair that fell all over her shoulders in locks, and large, hunter green eyes accented by deep dark circles beneath them. She had pale skin, most likely caused by the absence of necessary sunlight a normal child receives. She was covered in bandages from her neck down, those around her neck loose as if they may have been pulled from her head, and she was dripping wet in life-preserving test subject liquid, soaking her almost as green as her anger-filled eyes. "In the game of Life and Death," She repeated, more strongly, "we _all _lose." The girl stood not a moment more before turning her back and exiting the lab frailly. Shattered glass could still be seen glittering under the flashing lights of computers behind her, as the green juice spilled across the floor in rivers. The scene conveyed the most gruesome realization to innocence as it is lost; that all that glitters is not gold, and beauty isn't always beautiful.

Barefoot and nearly naked, the girl formerly called Project C817 SOLITA made her way through doors, breathing loudly but steadily, tilting to one side or the other every now and then as she walked in such a frail way. The expression on her face seemed to never change, and from a distant perspective she may have seemed ready to kill, but after a second assessment, the only truth about her was that she was focusing. Focusing on her freedom, on her future. Focusing on forcing the past out of her brain. Focusing on her rise above this life. Focusing and concentrating on not collapsing entirely.

Wail. The sound of two old double doors being slung open forcefully. Rust. Peeled paint. Handles and bars. Out into the streetlights stepped Solita. For a moment she checked her surroundings, nonchalantly, coolly, not as a timid squirrel or a wary bird.

You see, there is no sunlight in this part of Midgar, for the lower half is shielded by the upper half. Midgar is two-storied. The second "story" is filled with rich, snobby, obnoxious people, living the high life and labeling those below them "uncivilized," "barbaric," and even "lunatic." The lower portion, or the slums, is a disease ridden, famine filled hell-hole that hardly supports life. Hojo was a top scientist of Shin-ra, the company that created Midgar, so he "lived" up above. However, such experiments were only truly granted permission below, where no one cared to fight back or protest, and the value of a life was never taught.

It was always midnight in the slums. Places that were well-lit or had sunlight were few and far between, oh, SO far between. The entire scene below the plate was an eyesore. Solita looked overhead to glare at the plate. She could almost smell the liquor and hear the stuck-up laughter. That was probably where her mother came from, too immature to even take care of her own responsibility. Solita remembered this, though only vaguely. That's what she'd been told in that orphanage in the slums before she ran away. She couldn't have been in that cylinder too long. The girl's head rolled over abruptly to look to the left, eyes widened, mouth still slightly opened. Footsteps. Children could be heard, running, screaming, trying to help each other. To them, it didn't matter who, where, or what. Everyone was an ally, everywhere but here was a refuge, and anything in reach could become a weapon, obstacle, or escape route. All of them experiments. Solita hoped they would escape along with her. A little boy came running from around the corner, looking over his shoulder just once. He saw the girl before him, obviously marked another insane experiment, and called out for help. Her lips parted, and the boy fell to the ground, his eyes white. Hojo's extreme rage could be heard approaching rapidly; a tranquilizer dart hung from the male child's neck. The same way they opened, C817's lips closed. Her eyes narrowed. She stiffened, froze.

Like bullets, Professor Hojo's feet came following the same path taken by the now unconscious boy just seconds earlier.

The man stopped. There was silence. "The last one," Hojo said aloud, thankful that only one laboratory had truly been affected. After letting an exasperated sigh through his mouth, Hojo looked over his shoulder. That is, of course, except… Solita." With intent concentration, Solita stared the black-haired man down. Not even a breath of air broke the silence now. The child-like teen stood perfectly hidden above the professor's head, perched on an enormous pipe, hands gripping shakily, feet and legs bent just as Tarzan or some beast child may have stood. 817's eyes trailed after Hojo as he confidently re-entered the building, leaving the boy to be carried away by his minions.

"Poor kid," Solita whispered, taking one last glance at the boy as he was carried off. She allowed herself no time to ponder his future, but leapt down to the ground, stood, and darted into the building. She couldn't exactly tell herself why she'd do that, simply the idea of possibly getting revenge on a probably expecting Hojo.

When she first stepped in, she once again scanned her surroundings, fully expecting to be pulled behind by her throat and mouth, or pushed forward into broken glass, but there was no sign of life within the shadows. Ambling forward, her eyes continued searching for danger.

Within moments, danger certainly appeared, but it did not manifest in the way Solita had first expected. An orange flare was the first thing to catch her eyes, and before she could turn around, she already knew:

Professor Hojo had departed, leaving her nothing more as a parting gift than a blazing fire. Like gasoline, the emerald mako fueled the fire, encircling Solita, reflecting in her eyes, on her skin, becoming more and more real. "Damn it!" The girl fell to her knees, only so much oxygen left, so little time, so many (or rather so few) memories she could call her own. As the flames began closing in, the girl, the young woman, known only by a few minor scientists, and by those few as "C817 SOLITA," a name falsely given, laid down. Curled up in the fetal position, watched the fire grow. She braced herself. "So we played the game of Life and Death, my friends. And we lost."

The lab door busted open. A woman with long, brown hair clad in a lab jacket and wielding a fire extinguisher darted in, coming to a dead halt before making sure that no one was still here. She'd had to beat down the door, as it was nearly welded shut, and pushing open molten metal was NOT a logical action. It was then that she saw her. Making full use of her fire extinguisher, Lucrecia Crescent raced through the flames and down to the floor to where 817 lie. Quickly discovering that Solita was alive, Lucrecia scooped the child up and made a hasty runaway from the flaming walls. Now the gleaming liquids and sparkling glass shone in the flickering lights of the all-consuming fire. Solita peered over her savior's shoulder and watched the beauty die.


End file.
